Tag: Old Europe

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Wednesday dismissed French and German insistence that “everything must be done to avoid war” with Iraq, saying most European countries stand with the United States in its campaign to force Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to disarm.

“Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem,” said Rumsfeld, a former NATO ambassador. “But you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They’re not with France and Germany on this, they’re with the United States.”

Rumsfeld also said Germany and France represent “old Europe.” The expansion of NATO in recent years means “the center of gravity is shifting to the east,” he said.

He was pilloried by the MSM for pointing the lack of commitment from the Europeans in NATO to any sort of defense, and the reliance on US tax payers to do the heavy lifting.

Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Gates issued a dire warning that the United States, the traditional leader and bankroller of the alliance, is exhausted by a decade of war and and its own mounting budget deficits, and simply may not see NATO as worth supporting any longer.

“The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense,” Mr. Gates said.

And the MSM nods in agreement.

I guess the difference was that Bush was going into Iraq and that was going to hurt the sweet deals for Oil Hussein many of “Old Europe’s” capitals had, and starting war #2. Gates is now speaking for people trying to get rid of Gaddafi so Europeans don’t have to worry about him doing what all others in Africa are doing – selling to the Chinese – and these tools are on war #4, 5 if you want to count Pakistan, and that makes this all better.

Don’t get me wrong: I think both are right about telling the Europeans to stop not only expecting free rides, and Rumsfeld was doubly so for telling them not t to screw us when it is convenient for them, but then I remember what it was like when the Europeans could defend themselves. Do we want more of what we had at the beginning of the previous century? And, no, I don’t think Europeans have abandoned those ways, they have become pussies, by necessity, as they allowed US tax payers to pay for their defense, but I would not be surprised to find out that they are still bloodthirsty bastards deep down in there.